Sharknado twists and turns into social media gold

Campy movie “Sharknado” took Twitter by storm (no pun intended) when it aired on the Syfy channel Thursday. References to the movie – especially jokes -- flew by, clogging social media feeds, as images of sharks hurtled through the air, all part of a giant tornado terrorizing Los Angeles. NBC’s Mike Taibbi reports.

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This content comes from Closed Captioning that was broadcast along with this program.

>>>look out because soon, very soon, the most horrifying monster menace ever conceived will be oozing into this theater.

>>the
1958
low-budget
horror movie
classic starring
steve mcqueen
. a genre leader in a long line of movies that know they are
low budget
and they embrace their own cheesiness in hopes that we viewers will too. well, it happened last night on the syfy channel. a movie with little build-up and a premise and execution so
over the topword of mouth
spread and people started tuning in and kept talking about it into today. for starters, there's the title, "sharknado," as in what happens when you combine sharks with a tornado.
nbc
's
mike taibbi
takes the story from there.

>> reporter: for once, the trailer truly does say it all.

>>sharknado. enough said.

>> reporter: a few words about the premise, and a few are all you need. giant tornadoes dump untold tons of shark-laden water on
los angeles
.

>>it's flooding here. not the plumbing. the ocean.

>> reporter: and the lead human characters, led by
tara reid
,
john heard
, and former "
beverly hills 90210
" stalwart ian zeroing, try not to get eaten. here's how campy it all is. someone actually wrote the following line. listen closely. "instead of letting live sharks rain down on people, we're going to get in that chopper and throw bombs into the tornadoes!" i kid you not. anyway, you guessed it, it was a hit for
nbc
's syfy channel. at least on
social media
. facebook was wild with it. 5,000 tweets a minute. some big names and even the
weather channel
's
jim cantore
who lamented "why wasn't i asked to be the forecaster for sharknado?"

>>we've never been hit by a storm quite like this.

>> reporter: but is
social media
gold really fool's gold? especially since other
pop culture
rockets like the
feature film
"
snakes on a plane
" were actually
box office
duds.

>>what's more important to advertisers and to networks is that social engagement that goes beyond the number of eyeballs on it and it goes to the volume of the voices of the people who are watching it.

>> reporter: "sharknado's" creators are considering a sequel. and last night's premiere will get a rerun next week.

>>these things are
once in a lifetime
where something comes along on this scale that just gets attention and everybody wants to talk about it.

>> reporter: in the meantime, it's fun to even say or write or think the name "sharknado." an awful lot of people are.
mike taibbi
,
nbc
news.